


Gasoline Sunset

by crystalequinox



Series: Nothing is Whole, Nothing is Broken [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Amnesia, Angry Sex, Depression, Implied Past Isa/Lea, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:51:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4708313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalequinox/pseuds/crystalequinox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxas had saved him from the horrible numbness of accepting your fate as a Nobody and the finger that twisted his will around half hopes.  Roxas was the spark.  The light, now buried in his own darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ignition

**Author's Note:**

> Post Dream Drop Distance/pre KH3. 
> 
> Please excuse my Destiny Trio + Lea indulgent first chapter, the shit storm is soon to come. This ride will be half slow burn half forest fire. 
> 
> While Gasoline Sunset is an AkuRoku fic, it will coincide with other fics making up the "Nothing is Whole, Nothing is Broken" series, each segment into different parts of the timeline line, but focus on different characters.

“Why are you here, Axel?” 

Withdrawing the cigarette from his lips and agitatedly flicking the ash off, he shifted from his resting state against the gently curving trunk of what he had been told was the famous Paopu tree.  He’d never been on the teeny island before but it gave him a weird sense of nostalgia.

The redhead exhaled smoke into the late afternoon breeze, watching it swirl into nothing, “I told you it’s Lea.” 

A pause as Riku resisted an eye roll at the seemingly frivolous detail that Lea kept reminding them all of.   Just one letter changed everything, though. It was the difference between cradling sick emptiness with ghost love and the harsh thud and ache of longing for someone who was no longer tangible to him.  Really, what kind of fucking joke was that?

“Right, Lea.  _Why are you here_?”

The kid was relentless.  Cold as a deep-sea dive to anyone save the Destiny Island Dorks, or otherwise known as Lea’s new friends.  Maybe new friends.  Sora was a given, the other two might need some convincing. 

He flashed Riku a smile, “The old man said to stick with you guys for training.  I’m on Team Hero now.” 

A cheerful screech followed by a rain of laughter and giggling drew their attention down to the shore line where Sora and Kairi had jumped into the pink orange tinted water from the pier and were splashing each other relentlessly until they were both soaked.  It was the last day of their summer vacation and they were living it to the fullest before returning to a period of quasi-normal existence. Lea turned his gaze back to Riku who watched the two tenderly, a quiet smile sliding delicately across his lips.  Of course Riku had never lost his heart, it was trapped in his chest, heavy, caged, and full.

When the icy eyes turned back to Axel they were hardened. 

There was a touch of jealously in him at the little peak of Riku’s heart, the content of knowing his dearest ones were just a giddy shout away.  Safe and whole. The guy had what was most precious to him and he knew it. 

And Lea knew Riku would do anything to protect it, even against those whom Sora trusted.

Not that he wasn’t aware of how distrustful his nobody self, Axel, had been. Hell, Riku probably had the low down on everything that happened at Castle Oblivion if he was rubbing elbows with Ansem the Wise and Namine.

“I am grateful to you for rescuing Sora back during the Mark of Mastery exam, but why do you want to wield a keyblade?”

Lea didn’t answer immediately, but stared back out into the reddened sky, watching the sun take its slow plunge into the ocean. The sunset here was noteworthy for sure, but nothing like the one in Twilight Town.  Nothing could hold a candle to the fading sun on his face, the sensation of drowning in those eyes when he smiled.  Lea took another drag and let it dissolve in twists.

“I have to get him back.” 

He chanced a look at the teenager, and Riku nodded at him, stern but understanding, before his gaze wandered back over to Sora and Kairi who were now wringing their clothes free of seawater. 

The night settled in, warm sky tones shifting to bruises as the sun began to disappear behind distant waves, an early twinkling of stars introduced the evening.  Lea finished his cigarette and let it flare up between his fingers and burn into ash that the wind took.   

Smoking had started before he’d lost his heart; it had begun as an anxiety reliever, the experimentation done by Xehanort and his cohorts took a toll on his mental and physical stability. He had kicked the habit as a Nobody, the comfort lost on him.  But once he had regained his heart the addiction came back in full force as an attempt to fill the hole in his heart.  The pack he had now he’d found while searching for his friend, in Isa’s room.  In the top left desk, thrown in and slammed shut.  He remembered the stupid fight over his bad habit, Isa snatching the still lit cigarette dangling from his lips, how it had escalated out of control and into rage. Into a division between them.

Now he’d lost his two best friends and with not an inclination how to get them back.  So far the quest for Isa’s whereabouts had been fruitless and Roxas… He didn’t even know where to begin except to stick around Sora and hope something would come up. Ienzo and Vexen agreed, grudgingly, to look into it but he’d had no word from them about it yet. He’d scoured the files at Radiant Garden, but had only run into to dead ends on the topic of Roxas’s special case. There might have been something in the reports at Organization XIII’s stronghold, but the path to the castle was just as lost as his best friends.  Even if he could get to it, Xemnas had probably made sure to hide any information that might exist. 

“If you get him hurt I’ll kill you.” Riku kept his eyes on the ocean.

With the threat breaking their silence, the world seemed to shift back into motion, back into the now instead of the contemplative past or future. 

The redhead chuckled humorlessly, “I’d expect nothing less from you.  In fact, I’d do the same in your position.”

“Hey slowpokes we’re going back! Are you coming!” Sora called up, hands cupped around his mouth, from the dock where Kairi waved to them, one leg already in the boat.

Even Lea couldn’t help smiling at them. Sora’s cheerfulness was welcomingly infections.

As they made their way back down, Lea turned to his wary confidante, “But Riku, lighten up.  I’ve grown pretty fond of the kid.” He jabbed his thumb in Sora’s direction and then tapped the side of his forehead, “Got it memorized?”

 

**** 

So he had been officially inducted into the group of Destiny Island Dorks as honorary ‘training buddy,’ ordained such by Sora. Riku had, to his surprise, become his major sparring partner, and after a few rounds with the cadaverous boy that he had obtained the most bruises.  It was almost as brutal as his guard training at the Radiant Garden castle. Although the better score usually belonged to Riku, Lea was never far behind.  Of course it did hurt his pride a bit to be floored by a teenager.

“I’m…a little out of my element with these swords.” He tapped the broad side of the wooden blade against his palm as he tried to catch a breath, attempting to hide the labor from his fellow competitor.

The wooden swords had been reinforced with magic by Yen Sid to be durable in training, since using their actual keyblades for practice would be overkill (not to mention dangerous and highly conspicuous, considering they were supposed to be staying inconspicuous for the time being) and regular wooden swords would fracture instantly when any of them clashed (which they knew because they had already tried it).    

Riku chuckled darkly and regained his fighting stance, except with a tad of flaccidity and a sheen of sweat on his arms, white strands of hair plastered to his face, “You making excuses, Lea?”

Lea smirked and took to his revised stance, similar to how he fought with the chakrams, but with the handle turned towards Riku and the wooden blade behind, his free arm held up and slightly in front of him, partly in defense, partly grasping the ghost chakram he wished he had. If he was going to fight with a keyblade from now on he would have to adjust his entire fighting style. He still lagged in summoning time compared to Sora and Riku.  Right now his fingers itched for a crossed handle. 

“Who me? Never.”

And then Riku’s knees bent, he was rushing forward and Lea ducked and slipped around to his side in hopes of landing a blow across his side. 

On the other side of the island, Sora and Kairi were sparring together.  Both of them opted out of fighting Riku this round, since he was hardest on everyone. Lea had expected the newly appointed Keyblade Master to take it easy on Sora and especially Kairi, but he was a ruthless trainer.  After sparring rounds though, he would always make sure his friends were properly hydrated and tended to any bruises or scratches they had gotten, using up his own magic even though King Mickey and Yen Sid had both strongly advised them all to avoid using magic while on the Islands. 

After his turn with Riku (which he had, unfortunately lost) they met up with Sora and Kairi for a break.  Sora had earnestly lost his round with Kairi, though he was far from sullen about it, in fact he always praised Kairi for her success in training, she was a quick learner.  The girl was sweaty and beaming, her rubine hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, a black headband with red and pink hearts keept the bangs from her face.

Honestly, it was pretty badass that she was a Princess of Heart _and_ a keyblade warrior. 

“You’re gaining on me Kairi, soon you’ll be able to kick Riku’s ass too.”  Lea commented.

At that she tossed him a pageant smile, hand on her hip and nodded, “You bet I will.”

He grinned.  Cheeky little thing.

“That’s _Master Riku_.” Sora added, earning a rueful smirk from said master.

“Just to you, slacker.”

For the next round he was taking on Kairi while Riku and Sora sparred, it was a first that they had been partnered together. They had been at this for a couple weeks now, and around this time Kairi and Riku left to get a start on their homework, leaving Sora and Lea.

The thought of homework always made him reminiscent, he had found school too much of a bore, the work too easy, but Isa had always been on his ass about attending anyway, always reminding him of their future. Funny, how it had been Isa’s idea for them to apply for assistantships in the study at the caslte and ruined any hope they’d had of a future. 

“No hard feelings when you lose, right?” Kairi asked, lifting the wooden sword.

“Ooh cocky, I like it.”

They had just traded blows when an “OW RIKU! YOU GOT ME OKAY?” resonated to their side of the island and the pair of redheads burst into laughter.

 

*** 

While Riku healed Sora’s blisters and the yellowing stripe of a bruise across his back, Kairi and Lea sat on the dock by the boats watching a school of fish glide by near the shoreline.

Lea looked away from the fish to the Princess of Heart. He should say something; he’d been meaning to apologize to her for the longest but hadn’t been able to find the right words. When it came down to it he could never say the right thing.  It was all façade and eloquence with him until it really mattered.

He scratched his head, “Hey Kairi, how about I teach you some fire magic next week?”

She nodded vigorously and smiled up at him, “I’d love that!”

“And about...what happened with the Organization, I’m-I’m sorry.”

She was still smiling at him, for some crazy reason.

“It’s not just about when I kidnapped you.” Wow when he said it out loud it sounded _really_ shitty, and more than a little creepy, although it was far from the worst thing he’d done in the Organization. “I meant what I said about looking for someone I care about, and that’s why I did those icky things.” The stuff before Roxas left? He didn’t have an excuse, and he wasn’t as sorry as he should be.  Before Roxas he had only been hanging onto something dead.  

Kairi nodded, her smile never faltering, “I know that now. Though I didn’t like you at all, at first.  I thought you were like the rest of them.  But when Sora told me what you did, I realized you’re a lot like Riku, y’know.” Her gaze fled back out to the wavering school of fish, “He would do anything to keep his friends safe, even if that meant letting darkness into his heart.  But it doesn’t just go one way, right?  I think Riku needs Sora and me just as much as we need him. That’s why I have to get stronger. I don’t want to be left behind anymore; I want to protect the people I care about too.  So I guess you and I are a lot alike, too.”

That’s why he had come back for Roxas, time and time again. He had been desperate enough to beat the shit out of him, enough to knock him out and drag him back to the Organization, (which probably hadn’t been the best idea at the time), enough to turn renegade just for the chance to see his best friend again, even once. Roxas had saved him from the horrible numbness of accepting your fate as a Nobody and the finger that twisted his will around half hopes.  Roxas was the spark.  The light, now buried in his own darkness. 

Lea smiled sadly, “I hope Roxas needs me as much as I need him.” 

Kairi said nothing, but gripped his hand with her own, the pressure just steadfast enough to be comforting and for a moment, as he looked at her, her eyes seemed a shade lighter and her smile a bit softer, and Lea knew the words next weren’t just Kairi’s.

“You’re his friend, of course he does.”


	2. Flickers

The hazy blue and violet hued clouds lapped like waves against the long lick of flames, with cotton candy pink whips between them.  He let the air pass in and out of his lungs in slow exhales as the twilight crept above him. Like waking from an afternoon nap to find he’d let too much time slip.

Not like the abyss he’d deteriorated into, pressed against wrath and innocence and solitude all wrapped within that one brilliant, enveloping love.  Bubbling layers of memories that didn’t belong him.  Figment experiences, false friends, and imitation feelings. 

He had to tell Sora.  About the hearts.  The golden eyes, and the blue ones, the fractured heart that was infringing on Sora’s, dragging it into nightmares.   He had to tell him, before it…

Before it faded.

He reached up into the air to hold onto the thought. 

Flammable, it turned into the gold highlight of the Twilight town sky above him.

Glint of light within the dark. 

Bursting into sunset shades. 

And then it was gone.

***

 

Stunned, afraid to even breathe as he watched the boy grab at nothing and then let his arms fall beside him, sit up, stand from the grass, glittering light still floating around him like stardust. 

Lea reached out, to hold him with the intent of delicacy.  Roxas was solid, and real, skinny little thing that he was, and he pressed the boy hard against his chest, nose against his neck, blond tickling his lips, closest he had ever been and it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t close enough yet.

“A-Axel?” came the wrong, muffled name, somehow right on his lips.

“Man I can’t breathe.”

“Oh yeah.”  Lea stepped back, keeping his hands on the boy’s shoulders.

His face was blurry though, sunlight cowlicks bled into ocean eyes.

Lea chuckled, “Shit.” He wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, “Still getting used to this whole having a heart thing. I missed ya, buddy.” Although that wasn’t completely true.

“Axel I-“ 

“ROXAS!  HEY!”

Lea turned to watch Roxas’s oncoming counterpart, running up the grassy knoll from the woods.  Right at the top though he overstepped and almost took a face plant into the overgrown lawn when Riku, silver quick pulled him up by the belt from behind and without skipping a beat Sora was jogging his way up to Roxas. Kairi not but a few paces behind them.

“Nice to meet you again Roxas!” he reached out a hand, possibly to pat the blonde on the shoulder, but the boy grabbed Sora’s arm in a fast grip, and looked as though he had something terribly important to relay to Sora and there it was on his lips, but his expression seemed to burn with a mixture of fear and disgust and he recoiled, Sora reached for him again, confused, but Roxas smacked his hand aside.

“ _Get away from me_!” It was almost manic the way he spit the words out, eyes wide, a wild fury coming over him, and then, gripping his chest with a pained cry.

“Roxas!”  His blood felt cold, draining from his face.  Already he was rushing towards the boy as he faltered, catching a hand between his shoulders as Roxas’s knees went and he collapsed. It was all he could do to keep his eyes dry and cap his panic.

Lea gathered the boy in his arms sitting him up, checking his pulse.  Unconscious but otherwise unharmed. With a breath of relief his heart began to take up it’s usual cadence, consoled for the moment that Roxas was here, physically, with a beating heart of his own. 

“I-is he okay?” Sora edged near them, but timidly kept his distance, full blue eyes about to spill over.

“Yeah.  I think so. You go ahead and look for Namine, I’ll stay here with him.” 

Sora nodded, resolutely, and went on, Riku behind him sparing a glance at the state of the two before following.

Concerned, Kairi hesitated, “Do you want me to stay with you?”

Lea shook his head, “No, Namine needs you guys. I can look after Roxas.”

With a last apologetic look over her shoulder, Kairi continued on after her friends. 

It wasn’t until all three of them had disappeared behind the entrance of the mansion doors that Lea let his composure drop, holding Roxas to him as he let his tears slide down his cheeks and into soft spikes. Out of terror from Roxas’s spell or just the fact that he could hold him at all, he had no idea.   

***

 

“Does Roxas hate me?”  Sora asked, nervously twisting his necklace back and forth as the duo stood looking over him.

Riku looked between Sora and Roxas who now lay angelically unconscious in the bed in one of the spare tower rooms Yen Sid had provided. His icy gaze settle on the blond as he considered the question.

“I don’t think so, he’s probably confused more than anything.  He’s had his identity told to him, taken away, remade, and then lost.  It’s probably going to take him some time to adjust.” He looked back to Sora, now calmed by Riku’s words of insight.

The worry didn’t leave Sora’s face completely though, and he said, almost to himself, “I thought we could be friends.”

Sora had put himself through a hell of an effort to separate Roxas’s heart from his own. 

Riku softened, “Just let Roxas figure it out on his own terms.  Besides, no one can resist you for long.” He settled a hand on his friend’s shoulder and Sora put his own hand over it, smiling and wiping his eyes with the back of his other hand.

“Are you okay, Lea?” Kairi asked as she entered the room, returning from the floor below where Namine was settling in. Aside from a touch of dizziness and lethargy, Namine had seemed otherwise stable.  

Arms crossed, he stood with his back against the curved olive wall opposite the bed.  Keeping his eyes trained on Roxas’s sleeping form.  Lea nodded, smiling stiffly, “I will be as soon as this sleepy head wakes up.”

She wasn’t convinced though, and he knew it. He could fool the entirety of the Organization, but nothing got past Kairi.

“Then will you tell him?”

“How’s Namine doing?” he asked, deflecting her question.

“She’s sleeping now.  Apparently the whole thing was pretty disorienting. But she said she’ll feel better after a nap.”

No erratic behavior from Namine.   No berserk confusion.

In the old days of the Organization when Roxas had suddenly passed out and lost consciousness for days at a time, there had been a lump in his throat whenever he looked at the boy, and his stomach had twisted when he thought about Roxas.  And he had thought back to the thirteenth member constantly.  Trying to convince himself it was only memories of what being worried felt like.  Now there was no pretending, the concern was eating him up.  

Lea let his shoulders slump and exhaling his concern with a shake of his head and a weak smile, “Roxas, always the problem child.”

When he realized Riku was looking at him, Lea returned his gaze, a silent plea, hoping the boy would understand.  

Riku gave a small, almost imperceptible nod, “Come on, let’s go ask Yen Sid what to do next.”  He directed the statement at Sora and Kairi.

As the three made their way out of the room, Kairi left him with what was meant to be a reassuring pat on the arm.

Honestly, he didn’t deserve those kids.

After the sound of three sets of footsteps descended the stairwell had faded away, Lea approached the sleeping boy and sat his weight carefully on the edge of the bed so as not to jostle his friend.

“Kid, you’re gonna get me killed one day. Oh!  Wait, you already did.” But the joke fell on comatose ears. Which he was momentarily glad for because it was a shitty joke anyway. 

Roxas was like a god damn pristine little cherub when he slept, seemingly peaceful in the void of dreamland. Lea reached out to touch his partner's cheek, hovered, and withdrew his hand. 

 _Not yet._  

Lea scratched his head. “It was shit before you came to the Organization y’know.  I was just so empty.”

He had wanted, no, _needed_ something to be loyal to.  And that had been Saix for a long time, hanging onto the scraps of memories that had been their friendship.  The ones Saix fed to him when convenient. 

Lea scrounged through his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and pulled out a singular stick that rattled softly in the box, lighting the end with a bit of magic (which he really wasn’t supposed to do according to the geezer, a totally frivolous waste of magic), he took a deep drag and exhaled, watching the plume of smoke swirl around him until they faded. 

***

 

Saix had him pinned against the wall of the deserted hallway.  Greedy kisses trailing from his jaw to become the scrape of teeth against his neck. 

It used to make him quiver and moan, hands grappling for hair or cloak or sheets. 

The beastly lust no longer fazed him though. He wasn’t looking at Saix; he was starring off into the hallway, listless in the ravaging. 

This was getting old.

But he let it happen anyway, let Saix ignore him days at a time, treat him like dried gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, the bit that you just can’t seem to scrape off so you leave it. Then Saix would show up to blindside him, shove him against a wall, into a bedroom, and fuck him stupid. Never in Saix’s own room though, never so close that that his precious _Superior_ would be aware. 

And after the sweat and the cold lust he would get out of bed and stands there like that, looking at the damn moon. The still moment before the darkness enveloped him so he could sneak away from the loveless tryst without looking back.  Pale back draped with a curtain of dampened blue as he stood at the bedside, like a fucking wall.

No like the moon, right there in the sky as big as your head, but too far away to ever hold.  Frigid and distant but always in sight. 

“You’re just going to leave?” 

His arm was nearly limp, held pathetically in the air as a bridge between himself and the imposter form of a man he used to love, fingers on wrist.

They had decided to grow out their hair together, or Isa had decided and he had followed.  Though he’d pretended the idea had been of his own volition. 

Look who was still just a follower.

Saix turned back, a condescending smirk on his lips, his scar illuminated by the moonlight from the window, “Is this the part where we cuddle and say sweet nothings?” 

Axel let go, draping his arm across his eyes, to block it all out, “Fuck off.”

And then came the hollow rage, the desperate need to fill in the space of his lost heart.  He was left in embers and ash.   

***

 

With a shift of limbs and the lightest groan, Roxas yanked Lea’s mind back to the present, and he watched the boy’s eyes fluttered open. Clouded and drowsy, like the day of their first mission together. 

“Axel?”

He took the half disintegrated cigarette from his lips, “Yeah buddy?” 

“Smoking is bad for your health.” A sleepy frown, “Got it memorized?” 

Sora, Riku, and Kairi heard his cackle of laughter from three floors below. 


	3. Asphyxiation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify, if it's from Lea's perspective, he will be referred to as "Lea" but if it's from Roxas's perspective, because Roxas still considers Lea to be called "Axel" he will be referred to as "Axel".

 

Roxas stared at the ice cream held out to him, squinting at the sparkle of frost around its edges, like he was unable to process what it was for a minute, a twinge in his chest, a foggy memory mist that he couldn’t quite see through. 

“You gonna eat this or keep staring at it?”

With a mental shake, the boy reached out for the popsickle stick, his fingers brushing Axel’s.  They seemed oddly warm compared to the chill exuding from the dessert. And soft.  Different.  He didn’t remember Axel’s fingers feeling so smooth.

“Oh.  You’re not wearing gloves.” His realization verbal, his fingertips still brushing the long slim ones belonging to Axel.

He smirked but what is a strained? Not the same easy slide of Axel’s lips that he remembered. 

“My best friend is a god damn genius. Now take this before it melts on me.”

Roxas’s own lips perked a tad at the quip and with a nod he took the sea salt ice cream, looked out towards the vast skyline. The rooftops reflecting warm shades back into the sun, a distant array of gently sloping bruises made up the mountain formation against the horizon. 

“The geezer doesn’t want me using any dark pathways so the cloak had to go, plus the full head to toe Organization duds weren’t cutting it fashion wise anymore.  Though I think black is my color.” 

Turning his attention from the skyline to his friend, Roxas watched Axel tug at his long, black tunic-like vest for emphasis. It was the first time he had clearly noticed that Axel’s clothes were different.  Underneath the vest was a red sleeveless shirt and black leathery pants with the addition of black, high-top athletic shoes and a couple wristbands. 

“It looks good on you.”  

Axel responded with a shrug and took another bite of his ice cream.  

That was weird, right?  Axel usually made jokes about stuff like that. Didn’t he?  It was taking him some time to regain any semblance of normality. There were too many fractures of memories to piece together to make sense of anything.  So far he had been in a zombie-like haze. Everything seemed numb and distant or too close, too loud, and too much. This was the first time he had actually been out of his barren room at that magician guy’s castle. For days he’d shut himself in, not letting anyone beyond the door but Namine, who showed up to bring him food or sat nearby and quietly worked with her sketchbook and pencils, sometimes humming.  He liked it when Namine was there, she didn’t ever try to force anything out of him, or pry open what he wanted shut tight.  Sora, Riku and Kairi had all rushed in once he’d woken, and began asking him all sorts of questions. How do you feel? What do you remember? Can you feel your heart? Can you tell us anything about Xehanort’s plans?  He couldn’t stand it, all happening at once, he didn’t understand half of it.

So he’d done the only thing he could think of to make it all stop, cover his ears and scream bloody murder to block out their interrogation. 

Which apparently was not a sane thing to do, according to Axel.

“So, where have you been?”  Roxas asked, attempting to sound nonchalant, but the hurt was evident in his tone.  Axel hadn’t knocked at his door even once.

He scratched his head, “I mean you told me to get the fuck out along with the others, so I thought I’d give you some space.”

“Oh.  Yeah. Sorry.”  That was fair.  He’d sort of freaked out on everyone; it was only natural for Axel to be pissed at him for being a psycho.  Now that they all had hearts.

“I uh, I checked on you though.” Axel said, turning over the now slick and bare popsickle stick in his hand and checking it for a ‘winner’ indication. 

“Everyday.”

It was blank.

“Oh.”

“Damn.  Looks like I’m not a winner.” He held the blank stick up for Roxas to see, and then caught sight of Roxas’s uneaten ice cream, suddenly alarmed, “Shit man eat that it’s melting!” 

“Huh?”  Roxas looked at the pastel sludge streaming it’s way down the stick to his hand. 

Axel grabbed Roxas’s wrist and the boy looked down at the sticky blue ice cream about to slide down to his fingers, but before he could do anything, Axel leaned forward and licked the ice cream from base to tip and then took a good sized portion into his mouth, and for some reason, Roxas couldn’t look away, he was mesmerized by the sight.

His lips parted in a mounting protest at the loss of his ice cream, but it went dead in his throat.  And when Axel’s eyes flickered up at him, there was something dark and dangerous in them. 

Out of place, but not quite unfamiliar. Like the look in his eyes right before he struck an opponent down.

 

*** 

“I fucked up.” 

Kairi gave him a skeptical, but slightly humored look. “It might have been a bit forward.”

With a noise of self-disgust, Lea set his forehead against the table.

“Try not to get your tears on my calculus homework.” She tapped a finger on the sheet of paper peeking out from under his face. 

“Oh, _excuse me your highness_.” With exaggerated effort he sat up. After scanning the paper, he pushed it towards her, “Sixteen and twenty-three are wrong. Check your decimal places.”

While she looked over her answers, Lea leaned back in the chair, looking out the kitchen window at the end of the table between them, the dying light of early evening still bright enough to send mellowed rays of sunshine into the homely earth toned interior. 

“So are you just going to keep making weird sexual advances on him or are you actually going to tell him?”

“In self-defense, his ice cream _was_ melting.”  It just kinda happened.

Restraint hadn’t really been in his repertoire before Roxas. Cunning, deception, agility, flare, those were all the things he had become a pro at as a Nobody. Now he could do nothing but dance around Roxas’s whims and bursts, the unknowing puppeteer to his heartstrings.

Having redone the problems Kairi, rolled her eyes as she leaned back and crossed her arms, mirroring Axel’s pose, “He’s going to figure out sooner or later.”

Lea slid a hand over his face, resting his elbow on the table to stare at the swirling grain of the wood without really seeing it.

He shouldn’t be here.  He ached to find his missing counterpart, to turn the worlds upside down and inside out.  Every time he left to search for his lost friend, he would only find himself worrying about Roxas.

It felt like he was abandoning Isa. But he couldn’t leave yet.

Roxas was found, but more lost than ever.

 

*** 

“Gone?  What the fuck do you mean, _gone_?”

Master Yen Sid’s eyebrow twitched at his display of profanity, something he thought unfit of a keyblade wielder.

With an exasperated breath, he answered, “Roxas seems to have slipped out of the castle through the use of a dark pathway, and I cannot account for his location.”

Lea’s fists tightened at his sides, “And you didn’t think to stop him?” 

The old wizard shook his head slowly, “The boy has a free will, I cannot detain him or predict his actions in his current state.”

His fist came down on the desk, jostling a scroll off the table to rol across the floor.  Yen Sid remained unfazed. 

“He’s a god damn open target on his own! And you just let him go?” 

A quickly aproaching clacking of heels came from outside the hallway and through the door burst a breathless Namine, “I…” she leaned over to catch her breath, hand over her heart, the fragile little thing. 

“I know where Roxas went!”

*** 

 

As Roxas looked away from the sea, he caught the last whips of inky mist of a dark portal dissipating against the white sand beneath Axel’s feet.

“Man, that’s one hell of a dangerous stunt you pulled.”

He hadn’t worn a coat, leaving him exposed to the virulent nature of the darkness.  It was stupid for him to use a dark portal for a meaningless escapade to this island on a crazed whim.  The damn place just seemed to draw on him, but now that he was here, unable to see it through Sora’s eyes, it was less mystical and more of a dreary disappointment.

This was Sora’s island, Sora’s home. Not his. 

He hadn’t found any answers here. It was like being a puzzle with missing pieces in the box, plus a bunch of pieces of a completely different puzzle thrown in. 

“Hey, I’m talking to you, nugget brain.” He ruffled Roxas’s hair, a familial action, he realized, and as the boy automatically closed his fingers around Axel’s with the intention to push his hand away, he felt skin instead of leather.

No gloves.  Axel hadn’t worn a coat either. 

He pulled Axel’s hand from his head and stared down at it.

It was one thing for him to use the portal unprotected, but why would Axel do it?

“You gonna give that back?”

When Roxas looked up at him, Axel’s edges were blurred, the world around him wavering.  A thudding inside his chest.

“Why?” he wiped the tears from his cheeks with his left hand, the other still grasping long fingers.  “You promised to bring me back, why would you do that? Why did you follow me? Why do you always follow me?” He couldn’t stop the tears now, they were just another unruly part of himself he couldn’t control.

Axel’s hand came to wrap around his own, tight, almost too tight and almost reflexively he held fast to it.

“Whoa hey, don’t you have it memorized? It’s because we’re friends. Best friends.”

Roxas shook his head, he couldn’t look up at Axel, couldn’t see his eyes again, afraid they might be lying, so instead he stared at their clasped hands. 

“Why would you want to be my friend? Sora’s so much better at it!”

Tear droplets darkened speckled spots of sand between them, the wet sinking into white, tainting it. 

“Do you hate Sora?” 

The question hung in the air, the leisurely crashing of the waves repeating it, over and over, everything was about him, every touch and taste and smell; every memory belonged to Sora. 

“I-“ the breath caught in his throat and went back and forth, and suddenly was desperate for air and it pushed in and out of him rapidly, uncontrollably, until he was hyperventilating.

He felt light, like he would float away, and his knees gave in, but Axel kept him aloft with a strong grip, and he let himself be set against the base of the paupu tree by guiding hands as his breath came in fast bursts, everything seemed to grow ethereal around him and he felt like he was fading. 

Roxas shook his head, just barely but it took great effort. “ I don’t…” his words came out whispery, between breaths, as the world spun, “I don’t want to disappear.”

“I’m not gonna let that happen buddy.” He was clasping Axel’s hand again, but he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, his legs were stiff and useless in front of him.  He was drowning and floating and terrified, his only tether was a hand he couldn’t feel.

 

***

 

Shit shit was he having a stroke? Heart attack?  A panic attack?  Holy fuck was he dying?  He wrapped his hands around the nearly limp, small one attached to a rigid body.  

“Roxas, buddy stay with me.” 

He’d have to risk it.

Scooping him up from the ground, Lea was already summoning the dark portal as he fixed Roxas tight in his arms.

When he burst into Yen Sid’s loft carrying a hyperventilating teenager bridal style, the wizard rose faster from his chair than Lea could have ever given him credit for.

“Help him!” Was all he could say. All his earlier pomp of contempt cast to the wind in Roxas’s time of need. 

“Set him down, there.” He pointed to the wall, the same spot he’d found an unconscious Sora not to long ago.

Lea did as told and looked up at the wizard, barely able to cap his dread.

A feel of his forehead, a test of his pulse, and a wave of his hand, and Master Yen Sid calmly surmised, “He’s having a panic attack.”

Not dying.  Though Isa had told him once a panic attack felt like the moment before death. Isa used to get them all the time after the experiments started.  He was always there to calm him down, at least until the bipolar outburst; he could handle this with Roxas. 

Lea took his hand once more, “Just breathe, Roxas. Look at me.” He breathed deeply for Roxas to imitate, pressing the hand to his own chest so Roxas could feel him breathe, feel the heart he was trying to steady. 

The boy’s eyes were cloudy and dripping, a sapphire storm, but he gave a jagged nod.

“You’re not gonna disappear. You’ve got a heart.”

His breathing was shallow at first but elongating until, with each shuttering breath he gravitated back.  Slowly, his quaking calmed until the edge of terror softened into a deep-set exhaustion.  With jittery fingers, Roxas squeezed Lea’s hand back with his own still plastered over Lea’s heart, his free hand on his own chest, almost like he was comparing heartbeats.

 

 


	4. Disaster Zone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify, if it's from Lea's perspective, he will be referred to as "Lea" but if it's from Roxas's perspective, because Roxas still considers Lea to be called "Axel" he will be referred to as "Axel".

Day one on Destiny Island.

Roxas surveyed the disaster. 

A couple t-shirts in a motley of blues, oranges, and reds overflowing from dresser drawers; a jacket slung on the back of a chair. Splayed across the floor was a pair of shorts, some underwear, mixed with mostly empty chip bags, dirty socks, a stray necklace on a silver chain attached to a crown pendant, a net lay fallen over an open book that had probably only been skimmed not read, similar reading material was scattered over a desk, distraught with loose paper with scribbled notes and wads of paper balls, writing utensils and erasers with teeth marks.  A star and fish mobile hung near the door, other bobbles and hand crafted toys sat on shelves, the walls were smeared with tape pealed posters and drawings done with the mastery of a six year old. 

There was a stale smell, somewhere between fish and damp, dirty laundry.

 _This will be good for you._   Is what they had said, but all he heard was _we don’t trust you._

_Unstable._

_Fuck up._

Due to his little runaway trick and subsequent panic attack, the magician had advised him to stay on Destiny Island to “reorient” himself and assured him it would be safe on the island with Riku and Sora there (his jailers), but Axel and Namine had invited themselves along for “precautionary measures” which he had been partially grateful for, but partially irritated that no one thought he could take care of himself.  

But when he agreed, he hadn’t realized “staying with Sora” meant literally staying with Sora, in his house, sharing his room. Sora was practically the last person he wanted to be around.  If he had to stay at Destiny Island he would have rather slept over with Riku or Kairi. Come to find out, Sora’s mom and Kairi’s parents didn’t approve of Axel’s presence in general and so the redhead was staying with Riku while Namine paired with Kairi. Too tired to argue, he had agreed, reluctantly, to spend at least the night in the shit hole that was Sora’s room.  

“Okay so I didn’t have time to clean after school today but-“

“This is gross.” 

An excuse really, Hayner could be just as much as a slob, except with the addition of comic books and Struggle ticket stubs and the dirty magazines slipping out from under his mattress...

At least that’s how the fake Hayner had been.

Roxas began to turn from where he straddled the open space between Sora’s room and the hallway, but Namine blocked his escape with her steady presence.  

“It will be okay.”  Her voice low so that the brunette who was madly throwing clothes into a wicker basket and jamming candy wrappers and soda cans into an already overflowing trash can wouldn’t overhear. 

Roxas took a deep breath and Namine smiled, pressing her fingertips against his chest, “Just remember, you’re you.”

His smile was weak and soured, but he slacked and relented. 

When he turned back to Sora the boy had cleared more space on the floor and was kicking stray shoes and a red school binder under his bed.  A big grin was plastered across his cheeks. 

“Okay, so if you’re hungry there are some leftovers in the fridge we can heat up, since Mom’s still at work. Riku’s got a test tomorrow so he’s not coming tonight.”

Purposefully avoiding Sora’s twin eyes he gave a noncommittal sound and a motion of his shoulders.

His chest was tightening though, a buzz that had been there all day now jittered through his veins, pressing against his ribcage and throat.  A sinking in his stomach.

“I’m gonna go get some air.”  The words came out in a monotonous mumble, already making his way down the staircase and out the way he’d been led in. 

Sora’s wordless voice followed him down the steps, Namine came trailing after him, but he didn’t stop at the sand dusted porch, or the front yard, he was walking through the dusky blush air of the sunset, in the back of his mind a footnote compared the soft, bleary atmosphere to the streaks of scraping reds and tangerine flames of the Twilight Town sky.

It wasn’t until he was staring at the water, a hand slipping into his own that he realized Namine had followed him all the way to the shore. 

She didn’t speak, just let him stare at the skirt of foam that washed ashore.  With every swirling crash of a wave, the sound lulled him into a condemning calm until the night skyline glittered with sparks of stardust.

“Axel asked if I hated Sora.” He started quietly. “I don’t think that’s it.”

 A soft press of palm to palm assured him she was listening, though he didn’t look at her.

“Before…I thought it was inevitable, y’know? That I would return to Sora, no matter how badly I wanted my own heart, how much I wanted to be me. But then, I talked to him in a dream. He said I deserved to be me.”

“Roxas, he saved you.  He cares about you.”

Sora cared about everyone.

It pissed him off.  He had let everything go, cut all attachments from the life he knew to become part of Sora, handed him all the broken memories.  But the guy couldn’t just accept it, Sora couldn’t just let him fade back into the darkness, couldn’t let him forget how he had been used, how he was a façade of a person. 

Roxas shook his head, and covered his eyes, “Well he shouldn’t have!  He’s me but I’m not him, _I can’t be him_!”

And that’s what was the most fucked up. He couldn’t be what Sora was. He had no past. Couldn’t save anyone. Sora was the chosen one, not him.

A thoughtful silence, to let Roxas wipe away the wetness from his face and meet her gaze again with tired, puffy eyes.

“I think you’ve had a heart for a long time, even though you didn’t realize it.  You don’t have to be like Sora, just be like you.”

But who was he?

 

***

 

Day four on Destiny Island. 

The wooden creek of the window being forcibly lifted caused Roxas to jolt out of sleep to find Axel gripping the windowsill from the outside, nearly silhouetted against the mid-day sun “Rise and shine buddy, we got some training to do.”

Roxas blinked behind the hand raised to shield him from the brightness from beyond the window frame.  Once.  Twice. A third time. 

How did he even get up there?   The guest room was on what, the third story?  He’d switched rooming situations at Riku’s place after the first day on the island, unable to deal with Sora’s snoring, and Axel was sneaking into Sora’s room at night so his mom wouldn’t find out.  Come to find out, Riku’s family was filthy rich and his dad was the mayor.

“No.”

He slumped back against the mattress, back turned to Axel, pulling the blankets over his head.  Training?  He’d tried to summon his keyblade a hundred times and not once did it appear to him. His heart must be too messed up now to wield a keyblade.

The light didn’t want him.

“Hey hey!  Don’t ignore me you little shit!  I just crawled up some vines to get in here!” 

A huff, a grunt, rubber heels scraping against paint, and then the sound of Axel bodily falling through the window informed him that his friend had entered the room. 

He couldn’t help but smile to himself, a little regretful that he hadn’t actually watched that scene unfolded. But the thought was quickly dashed by the sudden lack of a pillow under his head and a whack from said pillow via Axel. 

“Come on man, get up!  We’re not on vacation!  Namine wanted to let you sleep in again, but I had a different opinion.”

All he’d done was sleep.  He’d ventured to the beach a couple times, collected some sea shells, but that was abou it. 

“Noooo!”  Roxas rolled into a tighter ball as the onslaught of pillow wallops rained down on him.

“What happened to that early riser I was friends with? It’s _my_ turn to get on _your_ ass about sleeping in.”

“You talk to much.” Mumbled the blanket rolled lump. 

 

***

 

A spark of life, he could feel the heat radiating from the length of the blade, the edges flickering yellow.

“When did you…?”

“Hmm, it wasn’t too long after I, uh, came back. I’ve been training under Yen Sid with the dorks.”

Axel spun the fiery keyblade in his hand, by the rounded guard, nearly the same way he balanced the circular interior of his chakrams over his fingers, it was the way he fought, loose but agile.

His other hand brought a lit cigarette to his lips, and he puffed out a plume of smoke as he swung the blade almost carelessly.

It irked him.  That Axel was a keyblade barer and he wasn’t. 

“God you’re going to kill yourself with those.” Roxas stepped up close to Axel and picked the cigarette from his mouth, tossing it away into the sand.

“Hey!”

The keyblade flickered and dissipated, leaving Axel standing awkwardly, scratching his head. 

Roxas motioned around him to indicate the little island they had come to across from the main village, “So…is that what you brought me out here for or what?”  He tried to sound spirited, the way he had always joked around with Axel, but it came out wrong, false.  Tinged with underlying emptiness. 

“Well I would have liked you to ogle a little more, maybe get a pat on the head, k’now?”

He waited for a response. 

Roxas rolled his eyes.

Good enough, a smirk.

From the weathered shack by the fountain wall he produced two wooden swords, “Heads up!” and threw one at Roxas.

Clumsily, Roxas stretched his hands out for it, caught the sword at an awkward angle, and almost dropped it, then held tighter. He surveyed the dull edges and worn handle, testing his grip.  Crude, but he liked the feel of it in his hand. 

“Yen Sid never said anything about _me_ training.”

A sly smile, “But he didn’t say you couldn’t train, did he?”

Roxas turned to Namine who sat on the nearby dock, looking up from her sketchbook back at him, she smiled.  He breathed, full, let the sea air fill his lungs, and was aware for the first time since he’d arrived of the afternoon sunlight warm on his exposed arms, neck, and cheeks.  There was something about it that made him sad, but he couldn’t quite place it, like something was missing in this picturesque scene. 

Or someone?

“You ready?” 

Roxas tested the weight of the wooden sword in his hand, worked his wrist in a spin, and took his stance, nodded, “Yeah, okay. Let’s do this.”

He was clumsy at first, out of practice.

But the more he worked, the better it felt.

To stretch his muscles, to react, to live in the moment. 

To sweat, to escape, just at the last second.

Even when Axel’s wooden blade made contact with flesh, sore bones underneath, the pain of it was real.  The bruises, still there later, were real. And he would count them before bed, test their sensitivity with his fingers.  Marks that meant he was living. 

No one feeling sorry for him, no reassurance, just action and reaction, dodge, swing, roll, jab, sideswipe. Sand in his hair, in his shoes, under nails, in his mouth. 

Too exhausted to think.

And that look, finally in context on Axel’s face, the bite and sting of his strike and spin attacks, and the burning too hot green fire in his eyes.

For the first time in days, he felt alive.  

 

***

 

 

Seven days.  Since his first day on the island.  Thirteen since he’d returned to the corporeal world.  Just shy of two weeks. 

Training offered an escape from pondering his new life, although he still kept his distance from Sora.  Riku and Kairi’s presence gave him a weird sense of bogus nostalgia, so he was standoffish with them too.  But today was his fist day training with the inhabitants of Destiny Island. 

Sora swung wide from his right, leaving him wide open, Roxas tried an upper cut as Sora rushed forward but the boy was quick and jumped back, so the blonde advanced and went for an overhead stroke but with the resounding sound of wood striking wood Sora blocked, and pushed forward, throwing Roxas off balance, when Sora came in for the opening with a jab Roxas ducked and then they were trading blows once twice three times, side, rounding, a nick on his shoulder, jab, then Roxas jumped up and was going to come down on him but Sora dodge rolled away and came at him from the blind spot on his left, and Roxas tried to regain his balance quickly enough, dodged at the last second, raised his blade again.

When he turned to meet Sora, blades crossed, they were both grinning. 

They each jumped back, but when the next blow came, Roxas was hitting harder than before, each stroke coming down with ferocity, and Sora was on the defensive, a slip and he would have splinter migraines for weeks, there was a gleam in Roxas’s eyes, a raw joy in the adrenaline.  

Something in him was slipping out of control.

 

***

 

He knocked Sora’s sword from his hand and spinning into the air, as it came down Roxas caught it in his free hand and, Sora let out a havy breath of defeat, “I guess you win this round.”

Roxas spun the two swords in his hands, the dangerous glint in his eyes hadn’t dissipated with the victory, his smile had been replaced with a course rage, his jaw clenched.

Sora took a few cautious steps back, “Come on Roxas, it’s over, you won.”

And then he was rushing forward again, dragging the tips of the wooden blades into the sand, a spray of golden specks when he lifted them, a tempest in his eyes as Sora, defenseless raised his arms for the immanent strike.

But it didn’t come. 

Blinking, his heart nearly vibrating from his near mortifying injury, Sora looked up to find Riku’s back to him, his own sword blocking Roxas’s lefts right hand, Lea at Roxas’s right side holding his arm in a firm grasp.

For a moment, Roxas’s face was still twisted in rage still, and then, slowly he seemed to wake from the mania, and went limp.

 


	5. Exposure

 

Axel led him bodily into the boat and did all the paddling back to the main island in furious silence while Roxas sulked in their wooden cocoon, gazing lazily at the shrinking speck of the island in the distance, where he could no longer see Team Friendship. Sora in tears, Riku ready to rip his newly earned heart out of his chest, and a good look of a visceral side of Kairi’s temperament he hadn’t been aware of. Even Naminé, the quiet essence of diplomacy, had edged closer to Sora than him.

With a strong grip on his arm, his “best friend” manhandled out of the boat, averting their eyes from each other, Roxas dejectedly exploring the vague patterns of overlapping footfall imprints on the sand as they marched all the way up to Sora’s house, Axel, with a tad of magic warmed the metal lock enough to soften it and open the door, and once through the door and up the stairs he practically tossed the blond into the tight hallway outside of their dear hero’s room.

“What the fuck was that?” Axel flung his hand in the general direction of the smaller island they had abruptly departed from.

Where he had just lost his shit on Sora.

Roxas let his head lull to his shoulder, his eyes gliding away from the lecture he was about to get. Shit the whole thing was an adrenaline fueled blur. He hadn’t realize what he was about to do until Axel and Riku had intervened.

“Roxas, what’s up with you? I thought you were doing better. I thought the training was helping you out of this funk.”

He refused to make eye contact, “Man, fuck off.”

A pause as Axel let the words sear into his skin.

Why did he even stick around like this? Why would Axel want to be his friend? Besides, he didn’t need Axel looking after him, cleaning up the pieces of his shattered sense of self and trying to shove them together when they didn’t fit. He didn’t want this babysitting shit.

When Axel spoke again, his tone softened, “Seriously man I’m worried, you could have really messed Sora up.”

The gloom was itching towards irritation, a burning began in his chest, and he clenched his hands into fists to keep them from shaking, “If you’re so worried about him why don’t you go kiss his bruises or something.”

The fading reds of the sky outside Sora’s window leaked from his windowsill and into the hallway, their only light source, to fall—when Roxas finally looked up at him—on Axel’s face, turning it into sunset flames.

Abruptly, Axel filled his fist with Roxas’ shirt, jolting him into shocked paralysis, his reaction more intense than expected, there was something underneath the surface that was ready to rip him apart. It was so unlike the cool distance Axel kept in the organization, the careful way he picked his words.

It was terrifying.

It was pushing him into a hostile state, rattling his bones, gasoline in his veins.  

“Don’t you _dare_.” Axel’s words were venomous.

Roxas shoved him away, “What’s _your_ problem? One minute you’re holding my hand and the next you’re trying to kill me!”

“What the hell I’m not-“

“You’ve actually _tried_ to kill me! When you thought I didn’t remember you. How fucked up is that?”

Axel slammed his fist against the wall inches above Roxas’s head and the boy flinched, but the rage seemed to deflate from him and when Axel spoke, he sounded tired, like this was a physical fight and he’d already been defeated.

“I never wanted to kill you, I was under orders, I—it was different then, I thought… Roxas this isn’t about me.”

The surge of adrenaline was pumping through him, some self detrimental impulse within him bubbled up, preferring to turn this into a full blown fist fight than try to sort through his mess of an identify crisis.

“You didn’t have a problem fighting to solve things in the past!” he shoved Axel hard enough for his back to hit the opposite wall of the hallway, “Go ahead! Beat some sense into me like before!”

 

***

 

“What? You want me to fucking _hit you_?”

A burst of light in his eyes from the setting sun was the vision of Roxas, every bit of a dark, trembling silhouette in some kind of typhlotic desperation, “Yes!”

Axel grabbed the front of his shirt once more to pull the boy jaggedly forward and raised his arm.

Roxas’ eyes screwed shut in anticipation of the knock out hit.

Elbow crooked, fist tight and high he held it there, Roxas’s face awash in gold from the fading light.

He couldn’t be serious about this. Why did they always end up like this? Each adding fuel to the fire until it swallowed them. He had walked away from the organization, he was prepared to die for Roxas, and here he was about to give him a slicker. To mar that delicate face with thick eyelashes that butterflied his cheeks, his lips pressed tight.

This really was fucked up.

His fist slackened, then fell.

           

***

 

Roxas tensed, awaiting the inevitable pain, the adrenaline shot he wanted, the burst of pain that might finally wake him up from this foggy existential nightmare, or at least draw the feverish stress away from his aching heart and fester on the slick, sick purple red rainbow of a bruised eye.

Instead of a knuckle impact, Axel’s long fingered hand grabbed his face, cheeks between warm digits and thumb to snag his chin up and he went wide eyed and frigid when the lips pressed too soft too kind too gentle against his.

_What?_

Everything was spinning around the steady press of lips, and Roxas opened his mouth to ask what was happening, to ask why this was happening, to call him something profane, but there was a warm, wetness where words should have been, a tongue snaking past his muffled indignation.

His body went slack and flush, veins heavy with rapture.

It tasted like the twilight summer sun; it tasted like betrayal.

Roxas fisted his hand, lifted it, tongue on his teeth, a hesitant moment of weakness, then he reinforced his will and his tightened fist shot forward.

To sock Axel in the jaw.

The redhead half stumbled backwards and Roxas breathed in with a shudder.

Rubbing his chin Axel returned his past partner’s crazed glare with cinder dread, not a drop of his usual languid sarcasm, “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“That’s not what I fucking wanted! I wanted you to punch me! But you ki-you you-what why?!”

Axel answered with silence, he answered with pleading green eyes, he answered with three hundred and sixty days. He answered with thirteen more. The lingering looks, the small touches, all Axel’s subtleties now illuminated through a new lens.

_Roxas... are you really sure that you don't have a heart?_ _Is it possible that we all have one? You, me, her. Or is that just wishful thinking?_

 

***

 

“Roxas I-“ he reached out for a handful of fabric, of skin, of something tangible to anchor onto Roxas, to repent his mistake, to plead with him, to lie, anything _anything_ at all to fix this.

But Roxas wrenched himself violently away and threw his stumbling weight into Sora’s room. Stardust sparkling in his eyes, falling stars down his cheeks and the betrayal, fresh on the boy’s face as the last glimmer of sunlight blinded Lea through the quickly shrinking crack of the door, and then with a definitive wooden thrum it was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the shortness of this chapter, I wanted this scene to have it's own space. Don't worry, the next chapter will be longer and contain a healthy dose of catharsis.


	6. Gentle Reminders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha so I haven't posted in forever good job me, I'm near graduation and everything is busy all the time. >___> Anyway things are gearing up here, but I swear there will be catharsis for poor Roxas and Lea soon.

 

Lea pounded a fist against the door, “Open up Roxas!”

“No!” shouted the boy, voice dulled by the wood of the door soaking up his the vibrations, “I don’t want to see you! Ever!” his voice came out choked and watery, “Just go away!”

“Roxas, come on man just talk to me, it’s not what you-“

“Fuck you! This isn’t…I thought you were my friend! ”

“I _am_ your friend!”

“You just want to use me like every one else!”

“Roxas that’s not-“

“Go away Axel!” his voice was breathy now, strained against his his lungs, his throat. His chest felt tight, limbs jittery.

“I won’t.” Lea pressed his forehead against the door, looking down at the line of light streaming from beyond the door, the window, the setting sun lapping into the room, an illuminated edge broken in half by the dark blot of a shadow that was Roxas. “Never again.” He slid down against the wood, turning with this back against the door to stare at the black planks of the tight, darkened hallway.

“Back in the Organization, when I was a Nobody, I was so focused on regaining my heart, I wanted my old life back. We-I had a plan. I would do anything to get it back, so I did shitty, awful things. It drove me crazy, the emptiness. Nothing felt right, nothing felt like anything. And then, this kid comes along, and he’s just a total zombie at first, but then he started calling me his friend and depending on me, and it’s nuts because I almost believed I could feel something, but that should have been impossible. And then, when he left, it…it hurt. And I thought, how is that, how is it that something hurts when nothing should be there, y’know? So I left the Organization, too. Because that whole plan I had, it just didn’t matter anymore. I risked everything to see him again. The person I cared about wasn’t in the past.”

A quiet rested on the other side of the door, at least the boundary between them wasn’t a figurative one this time. Everything was real and closer than before.   And terrifyingly honest. He had settled in lies for so long, used them as both weapon and protection, leaving himself defenseless for the first time in a long, winding trail of memories. Lea rubbed his eyes in frustration, letting his weight rest against the door before him.

What wash he going to do if Roxas hated him?

“I should have gone with you from the beginning. I’ve made a lot of mistakes but that was the biggest. I lost you. I’m never making that mistake again. Roxas, I’m not letting you go this time, got it memorized?”

Here it was, out in the open, spilling from the quiet places of his heart.

“I…I got my heart back because of you. I thought I’d never get it back, Roxas. I did a lot of fucked up stuff in the Organization but it wasn’t until I met you that I changed.”

Finally a reply: a muffled sob.

He heard Roxas take a wet breath, “Axel, I’m…” he shook his head, “I’m so scared. I don’t want to fade away again. I feel…I feel. And I can’t handle it. And you’re just making it worse.”

 

***

 

Eight Days.

“Roxas?”

His name drifted in from a haze filtering through a door.

A door, a wall, a barrier, even corporeal it was like there was a film over his body, keeping him from sensing anything clearly.

Rubbing his swollen eyes, Roxas picked his limbs from the plush bed and followed the motion with his body.

He’d fallen asleep. Again. His life now was just cycles of moping in dreamlike wakefulness and sleep—periods of escape from the moping.

“Roxas, unlock the door.”

Riku’s instructions left no question and in a fuzzy state, Roxas fiddled with the door until it clicked open to reveal the keyblade master.

Staying at Riku’s house was awkward, to say the least, he was surprised Riku was still letting him live, much less crash at his house. After attempting to crack Sora’s head open with a stick and all.

“You hungry?” he asked once the receding white door had allowed him full view of Roxas’s bedraggled form, his wayward hair more of a mess than usual.

Roxas shook his head.

“Well you’re going to eat. You’ve cooped yourself up in here for three days. Take a shower, get dressed, and come downstairs.”  

Ten minutes of drifting around the uncomfortably bright and spacious room, wandering into he bathroom to relieve himself and make an attempt at personal hygiene later, he found himself descending a length of marble staircase into the foyer just in time to glimpse the passing of a fair skinned, attractive woman stride out of the house. An equally attractive, clean cut man in a suite who’s face shared a likeness with Riku almost ran into Roxas’s ghostly appearance as he passed the kitchen doorway.

“Riku remember the new chandelier for the sitting room is being installed today, make sure they don’t tread in any sand on the carpet, we just had it deep cleaned for the governor’s social.”

“Byyyeee Riku’s dad!” called a familiar voice from a counter stool.

“I told you my name i-“ a glimpse at his watch, “Oh nevermind. Riku don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”  

With a last unsavory look at Sora who sat barefooted swinging his legs from the high stool in a blue tank top and tan cargo shorts, the man briskly followed the path the woman had taken out the front door.

It was the first time during his stay Roxas had caught a good look at Riku’s parents.

Next to Sora in the middle stool sat Namine, smiling at him in that quiet, knowing way. “Goodmorning, sleepy head.”

Roxas shrugged and mumbled a “g’morning.” To her taking the empty seat to Namine’s left.

Riku slid a plate of food in front of him, eggs, bacon, cut potatoes, and some sautéed leafy green stuff. The smell was rich and hearty, he picked at the food with his fork.

Naminé ran her thumb over the lip of her mug of tea, “I thought we could go down to the beach today. Just us.”

Roxas stabbed his fork into a potato, “Yeah, okay.” That didn’t seem too terrible.

Sora pushed his syrupy plate away from him and burped, Roxas shot him an ugly look of disgust.

“If um, if you want we could try training again later?” he smiled hopefully at Roxas, who in leeway of answering pushed his own plate away.

Not taking the hint, Sora continued to let words spew out, “Kairi and Lea went shopping this morning, but they’ll be back later and we could all go down to the island together, if you don’t want to train we could just make it a beach day—we could get a watermelon! Riku can we get a watermelon? And Lea said he could bring ice cream and-“

Roxas brought his fist down on the counter, “I don’t want to see him!”

Saturated silence followed. 

Dropping his fork to let it clatter against the counter, lightheaded and dizzy Roxas careened out of his chair and towards the door, throwing it open and pushing himself away from them all, from their questions and kindness and friendship and pity, outside into the blindingly fresh morning light.

 

***

“I can’t be like Sora.”

The words were quiet, nearly lost to the oceans sounds shattering against the shore.

He couldn’t be _The Keyblade’s Chosen One_ with a resilient heart that blanketed everyone in light, not elastic, he couldn’t bare everyone’s sadness, couldn’t even bare his own sadness. After his spliced memories and time between the realms of oblivion and divinity, his heart couldn’t take it. He couldn’t soak it up, even if he wanted to. It was like, for the longest time everyone told him he had no heart, and he rejected the notion adamantly, and now that there was something surely beating wildly in his chest, it had become a stale, dry sponge.

“You don’t have to be.”

Depositing his forgotten shoes next to him, Naminé sat, folding herself beside him. Waves laced up the shore, not quite reaching his sandy toes.

"Do you want to talk about Sora?”

Roxas hugged his knees tighter to his chest. “Not really.”

Naminé began to trace lines in the sand with her finger, Roxas watched unearthed grains form into a star, then bolts appeared beside it: a shooting star.

“Do you want to to talk about Lea?

“No!” he buried his head in his arms, rested them against his pulled up knees.

He didn’t want to talk about that liar, that jackass, that backstabber. He didn’t want to think about the frightening moment their lips made contact, the way it made him think of all the times Axel had given him those strange looks, or how he liked the way Axel used to ruffle his hair, how warm his smiles were towards Roxas on the clock tower, how much fun they had in a fight together, the way Axel moved in a fight.

“Did…did he tell you what happened?”

She shook her head, “No, but…I’ve known what was going on for awhile now.”

So he was the only one out of the loop apparently.

A jagged breath escaped Roxas and he planted his forehead to his knees, attempting to blot out the whole week.

Naminé leaned forward, her gaze searching beneath jagged blonde bangs for a glint of blue, finding nothing, she placed her hand gently over Roxas’s hands clenched against the fabric of his jeans, “He really loves you.”

The sun peeked from a string of clouds above, turned blurry grey in the distant horizon. A turbulent horizon the tell tale sign of an oncoming storm.

He let his hand be enveloped by Namine’s smooth papery hand, grainy sand crunching between their fingers as the tears began to seep from his eyes.

“I-“ he chocked on the words.

He wasn’t ready. Not for that kind of love, not the kind Axel wanted.

It scared him.

“He lets you call him Axel still. Have you noticed? That was his Nobody name. He corrects every one else when they try to call him Axel, except for you. I think, because you were the only one in the Organization who saw him as a real person, so he doesn’t mind.”

Roxas withdrew his hand to wipe his eyes, still avoiding looking at Naminé with his wet face. She let her hand drift to his shoulder, “None of us know how to love yet.”

Naminé always knew what he was thinking, her words a cool wave, like a living breathing anti-depressant. A gentle sorrow always undermined her words though, a burden lay there between syllables that he couldn’t fathom. And maybe that’s why she understood his despair and confusion more than anyone.

She had been alone a long time. Longer than any of them.

 

***

 

When Roxas returned to Riku’s house, Sora was gone. Replacing his presence in the kitchen was a single note on the refrigerator written in a delicate cursive script (what he assumed was Riku’s handwriting) indicating that there was a plate of food in the fridge for him.

His stomach ached at the thought and Roxas formed a fist around the paper and let it drop, crinkled, from his hand onto the floor.

“You really need to eat something.”

Nearly jumping out of his skin from Riku’s silent approach from behind, Roxas turned—shaken—to face the elder boy, his hand over his racing heart.

“Why do you care?”

“Because you barely eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Because your stomach is so empty it hurts to eat, right?”

Roxas rubbed his arm, “Why are you trying to take care of me? It’s because I remind you of Sora, right? You’re his knight in shining armor and all. ”

Ignoring the stinging comment, Riku made his way to the stainless steel fridge and extracted a ceramic plate with a sandwich and baby carrots on it, pulling away the plastic wrap and setting on the counter he pointed to the seat.

Begrudgingly, Roxas followed the command.

“No, actually. You remind me of myself.” He stooped to retrieve the crumpled note examining it momentarily before disposing of it in the waste bin, “The way I used to be. Angry. Pushing the people I cared about away. No one could help me because I didn’t let them in, I thought I could handle what was going on inside me by myself.”

Roxas stared at the plate of food before him.

“If you keep this up, you’re going to destroy yourself. And the people who care about you, it will destroy them. Now eat.”

He ate the sandwich, and the little carrots too.

 

***

Day Nine.

Riku and his family had already left by the time he woke, the sun blaring into the room. He brushed his teeth and showered. On the refrigerator was a note in Riku’s hand explaining there were leftovers from breakfast for Roxas.

He warmed the food—pancakes—in the microwave and ate them.   Maybe he would go down to the shore again. It was unsettling, not having a goal, like the first time he’d had a day off in the organization. Here though—existing in a space, a room, a world that wasn’t his own—it held a false familiarity, one that came from Sora. Everything was only an after image here. He wanted sea salt ice cream, he wanted the abused couch of The Usual Spot, he wanted cobbled pathways, the churning sound of trains, and the toll of the clock tower. He wanted to belong somewhere.

***

Roxas followed a trail of broken seashells. Inspecting their shimmering bodies for something whole. Something to fill his time, he pocketed the small butterfly ones, emptied halves still attached at the spine.

On the beach dock, he was hard to miss. The flare of his hair pulled into a jagged ponytail, one hand on his hip, the other flicking a dusting of cigarette ash into the wind.

Roxas approached the small wooden dock, with a handful of seashell pieces he came to where Axel stood at its end.

“I told you to stop smoking.”

Axel chuckled, “Well it’s a hard habit to break.” He had that tilt to his voice, the languid joking tone he used to distance himself.

Roxas sat on the lip of the dock, letting his sandaled feet hang over the seawater. Axel sat down next to him and watched the little whispy clouds float against the skyline as Roxas peered down into their glassy reflection. He watched as Axel’s reflection turned away from the sky and towards the ocean.

Roxas let the bits of shell fall below, disturbing their mirrored selves.

“Your thingies are gone.”

A bemused bubble of laughter came up Axel’s throat, “What?” he flicked the butt of his cigarette into the ocean.

“You shouldn’t litter.” He chided.

Axel waved a hand dismissively, “What face thingies?”

Roxas pressed each finger to either side of his own round cheeks, just beneath his eyes and looked up at Axel pointedly.

“Oh, yeah. My face is all squeeky clean and blemish free now.”

Roxas couldn’t help but let a crack of a smile show on his face, “What happened to them?”

Producing a rectangular paper package from his pocket, Axel tapped it against his palm and opened it to reveal a half empty container of cigarettes, he put his lips, and Roxas was—for the first time—keenly aware of Axel’s lips, their shape and hold on the cigarette. Talking around it as he rummaged in his pockets for a lighter he continued, “I dunno, some stuff changes when you become a somebody again.” 

Roxas studied his face with scrutiny as Axel cupped a hand over the end of the cigarette to shield it from the wind and clicked the lighter to life.

“You look kind of weird without them.”

The cigarette divided his grin, “Yeah?” he pulled the stick away and let a plume of smoke out into the air.

Roxas quickly looked away, the sight turned his stomach in an odd, sort of pleasant tumult, the same way it had when Axel licked the melting ice cream away.

“I wonder if I’ve changed. Like, physically?”

“You look older.”

A small smile drifted over his lips, a spot of sun to grace the world below with a beam of gold, “For real?”

Axel leaned forward and pinched his cheek, “Yeah almost all your baby fat is gone.”

Waving his hand away, Roxas laughed, and Axel laughed, and they were both laughing, the bent over, stomach strain, sore face kind of laugh.

And then Roxas was crying and Axel let the cigarette he was holding drop, rolling away and into the water with an inaudible plop to distort their reflections, his hands skimming over Roxas, unsure if it was okay to touch him or where, eventually he set a hand in the boy’s hair, and Roxas letting him, the force of his sobs wracking through his body and Axel’s strong, bony arms came around him until they subsided.

His voice faltered and stumbled into words, “I’m-“ his voice broke, he swallowed a shaky breath, slowly, Axel let his arms fall away and Roxas attempted to compose himself. “I’m terrified of disappearing again. I want to exist. Nobody knows what it’s like to be somebody else. To have somebody else’s memories. The only thing that really belongs to me are the days from the Organization, and even those seem…tainted or something. Everything about me is messed up. Everything feels wrong. I want to be me but…I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I want. I just…I need you to be my friend.”

He mindlessly pulled a seashell from his pocket, breaking it’s winged body apart as Axel’s silence stretched on.

“I won’t let you disappear, buddy. Got it memorized?”

Roxas nodded, “Yeah, I remember.” He handed one of the seashell halves to Axel.


End file.
